Tuesday, September 26, 2017

MAURICE: Blu-ray (Merchant/Ivory, 1987) Cohen Media Group

Maurice (1987) is the bittersweet tale of a man desperate to
reconcile the ferocity of his love for another man with the hypocrisies (and
hypocrites) of his time. It is also, I think, more than a smarting poke at the
stalwart pretense of the English to deny even the existence of ‘the unspeakable act’. Lest we forget
several important factors regarding Merchant/Ivory’s endeavor to bring E.M.
Forster’s novel to the screen. The
novel, first conceived in 1913, was posthumously published after Forster’s death
in 1970 to protect him from the stigma of authoring it and only a scant three
years after homosexuality itself had been decriminalized in England by an Act
of Parliament. The buggery law first cast in stone in 1533, making sodomy a
criminal offense punishable by death, would remain on the books in England
until 1861. But its ‘woe betide’ humiliation even after the threat of execution
had been lifted (too late to save Oscar Wilde) would remain in effect long into
the latter half of the 20th century. Interestingly, Forster’s innate
contempt for private school herein seems to be pitched at the cloistered halls
of higher academia, when in fact his genuine disdain was more centralized on
preparatory learning that he once described as creating “well-developed bodies, fairly developed minds and undeveloped hearts”.
Indeed, the years Forster spent at King’s
College proved among his most fondly recalled, writing in 1897, “...they taught the perky boy he was not
everything and the limp boy that he might be something.” Even so, Forster – a closeted homosexual – was
to keep his opinions and his more explorative written critiques on the subject
to himself; partly in fear of reprisals.

One could
scarcely classify the 1980’s as the more laissez faire decade that embraced
homosexuality as commonplace. The stigma by then had shifted from the act
itself to its apparently viable byproduct – AIDS – branded ‘the gay disease’ by the close-minded and
fear-mongering, at least until a good many non-practicing heterosexuals (women
and children) began acquiring and dying from the dreaded auto-immune
affliction. Thus, when director James Ivory approached King’s College, the
custodians of Forster’s manuscripts, with an eagerness to make a movie of Maurice, he was politely ‘encouraged’ to reconsider another
property from the author’s cannon in its stead – any property, except Maurice. Steadfastly, Ivory plied the
college with promises of making a tasteful adaptation. While Merchant/Ivory had
already illustrated their formidable talent for handcrafting movie art of the
highest order on a shoestring budget, Ivory was on even more secure ground with
King’s herein; having released his first Forster adaptation, A Room With A View (1985) to monumental
review and effect on both sides of the Atlantic.

Not
surprisingly, Mauricewould prove
hardly as popular, if generally as profitable; the picture’s subject matter
alone suggesting imminent backlash from puritanical audiences and critics. Determined
to do justice to Forster’s gentle construction and hopeful denouement, Ivory
resisted hiring cameraman, Tony Pierce-Roberts who had achieved wondrous
results for him on A Room With A View.
He also eschewed the company’s usual zest for screenwriter, Ruth Prawer
Jhabvala in favor of his own tag team efforts with screenwriter,Kit-Hesketh-Harvey.
As his cinematographer, Ivory approached Pierre Lhomme on the assumption a Frenchman
would be worldly, even accepting of the content, and thus less inclined to make
something overtly romantic, overly sentimental or perhaps even stoically restrained
from it. What emerges is another visual masterpiece to be sure, employing
stunning usage of its various locations. Regrettably, the excursion is not
entirely successful and on occasion quite antiseptic, even remote in its
storytelling.

The
performances in the picture are uniformly quite wonderful; from Simon Callow’s
prudently silly ‘educator’, Mr. Ducie (crudely sketching a man’s ‘membrum wirrilis’ and woman’s ‘waggeena’ in the sand with a subliminally
Freudian stiff bit of kindling to illustrate for the impressionable eponymous
character ‘the sacred mystery of sex’)
to Ben Kingsley’s hypnotist/quack, Lasker-Jones (reporting to possess ‘a cure’ for Maurice’s ‘bad feelings’), to Denholm Elliott’s
Doctor Barry (incredulously inspecting Maurice with his monocle for a venereal
disease), there is not a false note among the supporting roster, and certainly
none to be had in the trifecta of male lovers on whom the central plot pivots;
Maurice Hall (superbly realized by James Wilby as sensitive, charming and
insecure), Clive Durham (played with a particularly affecting arrogance by Hugh
Grant) and finally, Alec Scudder (perfectly pitched into the fray with a
ruthless abandonment by Rupert Graves). For Grant, Maurice proved a breakout; the actor – yet on the cusp of
international fame in 1994’s Four
Weddings and a Funeral, having appeared in only one student film and
actually began his professional career as a stand-up comedian. As Grant and
Wilby had worked together before, and actually become good friends, their
amorous thwarted flagrante delicto in the movie took on a fascinating – if frenetic –
passion. As director James Ivory would later recall, “They just went for it without hesitation.” In hindsight, it is the
discernment of the English that Ivory and his entourage have captured so well
in Maurice; the intentionally stymieing
vapors of a fish-eyed dowager (Judy Parfitt as Mrs. Durham), interested only in
the gossip value of a burgeoning scandal, or the less enterprising, though
equally as destructive ardor of a naïve, yet clingy newlywed (Phoebe Nicholls as
Clive’s beloved, Anne), as yet unaware she is ‘the beard’ to stave off
suspicions about her husband.

Although
Forster conceived of Mauricein 1913
he continued to revise his manuscript until 1932; resurrecting the property again
in 1959 to work on it for one full year. Written as ‘traditional bildungsroman’
(a novel of character formation), Maurice’s archetypes are, in fact, based on
real people. Nevertheless, Forster was devoted to his protagonist coming to a ‘good
end’ by ‘the end’ of his story. Respectful
of his mother, Forster only shared his manuscript with a few friends he knew
could be trusted to keep it a secret. Due to public and legal attitudes
regarding homosexuality, Maurice
would remain an unfulfilled part of Forster’s literary canon in his own
lifetime, until 1971. Either directly or indirectly owing to its subject
matter, the novel’s consideration remains as a ‘minor’ work when directly compared
to Forster’s irrefutable masterpieces, Howards
End (1910) and A Passage to India
(1924). In re-conceiving the novel for the screen, director, James Ivory would
insist on a level of authenticity both relevant to Forster, but equally as in
tune with the ‘turmoil’ of the
present age; his own passion distinctly heartfelt toward people who have “decided for themselves how they want to
live and what their true feelings are and whether they’re going to live
honestly with them or deny them.” As Ivory would later punctuate for his
critics, “That’s no different. Nothing’s
any easier for young people. I felt it was quite relevant.”

King's College
has denied their initial apprehensions to allow Ivory his tackle of the book were predicated on any sort of malignant or lingering prejudice, but on their assessment of Maurice as an
inferior work in Forster's authorship and fearing, perhaps, no movie would be
able to ‘enhance’ it as 'great literature'. Herein, the college was
likely unprepared for producer, Ismail Merchant’s persuasiveness – both legendary
and affecting. As co-collaborator, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala was embroiled in
putting the finishing touches on her novel, Three Continents, another
Merchant/Ivory alumni, Kit Hesketh-Harvey was seconded to the cause through his
sister, journalist and author, Sarah Sands, the wife of Julian Sands; A Room With A View’s leading man and,
in fact, Ivory’s first choice to play the titular title character in Maurice. For whatever reason, Sands balked at the offer
after having first accepted it; his departure followed by John Malkovich,
originally slated to play the quack/hypnotist, Lasker-Jones. Respecting Jhabvala’s
craftsmanship, Hesketh-Harvey’s final draft was given her once over, Jhabvala
suggesting the arrest and imprisonment of a university colleague, the surreptitious
Lord Risley (Mark Tandy), serve as the impetus for Clive Durham’s startling
conversion to heterosexuality. Also
omitted in the rewrite, Maurice’s childhood affinity for another schoolboy, Dickie. Jhabvala amplified the influence of Lord Risley as an Oscar Wildean
counterpoint sentenced, at least in the movie, to six months hard labor. In the
novel Risley is not imprisoned for his homosexual conduct. Finally, despite his
diminished status as something of a charlatan, Lasker-Jones is the only person
in the movie empathetic to Maurice’s psychological and social situation.

As with
virtually all Merchant/Ivory fare gone before it, Maurice was made on a very tight budget - $2.6 million when the
average cost of making a movie hovered between $15 and $25 million. Achieving extraordinary
visuals on such limited funds, Maurice’s
shoot was complicated by inclement weather, stretching the schedule to 54 days,
even with Ivory working his cast and crew at 6-day weeks to complete it. A good deal
of the picture’s opulence hails from the ivy-covered halls and quadrangles of
King's College; also, the stately manor and grounds at Wilbury Park, a
Palladian house in Wiltshire doubling for Clive’s ancestral home, Pendersleigh.
Debuting at the Venice Film Festival, Maurice
won several prominent awards, including a Silver Lion for James Ivory and twin ‘Best
Actor’ statuettes, jointly given to James Wilby and Hugh Grant. It would go on
to receive near unanimous praise from the critics for its handsome and
painterly production values; also, its intelligent script and superb acting,
and finally, for its uniquely dignified, yet candid portrayal of gay culture. Despite these accolades, Maurice would not become another cross-continental smash for the company, arguably undervalued
and unseen by the masses, yet steadily acquiring its reputation for quality ever since. Regrettably, at the time it was quietly filed away for being ‘too gay’.

Maurice begins
on a windswept beach in Brighton, the eleven year old and fatherless Maurice
Hall (played with supreme intelligence by Orlando Wells) given his first
tutorial by a rather giddy Mr. Ducie on ‘the
sacred mysteries of sex’. Ducie crudely renders a penis and vagina in the
wet sand with his walking stick, explaining even more humorously the act of
procreation to his prepubescent charge. Intently listening, Maurice reasons he
shall never marry, to which Ducie breathes a sigh of strange relief, predicting
that, in ten years’ time he shall have Maurice and his new bride to
dine with him and his wife. We flash ahead to 1909, Maurice’s college years at
Cambridge, along with the haughty and aristocratic Lord Risley and the
uber-wealthy intellectual, Clive Durham. Durham is passionate for his friend,
his confession awakening Maurice’s suppressed, but mutual feelings. The two
embark on a daring love affair under the watchful eye of Dean Cornwallis (Barry
Foster). Clive insists the ‘relationship’ remain platonic as to carry it any
further would ‘diminish’ them both. In reality Clive is rightfully concerned
for his future. As a member of the upper class, he will inherit his father’s
estate and likely pursue a promising career in politics. Disobeying Cornwallis
one too many times, Maurice is expelled from Cambridge. A close friend of the
family, Doctor Barry chides Maurice for inflicting unnecessary scandal and pain
on his mother. But shortly thereafter, Maurice begins anew as a stockbroker in
London. Meanwhile, his affair with Clive continues; the two paying weekend
visits to each other’s ancestral homes under the watchful eye of Clive’s games
keeper, Alec Scudder, and his personal manservant, Simcox, whose veiled
inference he knows what Clive is up to is quickly admonished and cut to size with a threat of dismissal by the master of
the house.

All seems, if
not right, than adequate between Clive and Maurice until Lord Risley is arrested
for attempting to seduce a guardsman(Breffni
McKenna) at the local pub. Risley is convicted but shown clemency by the
presiding magistrate who sentences him to six months hard labor. Divesting
himself of his association with Risley, Clive departs for an extended holiday
in Greece. Alas, upon his return home he suffers a minor nervous breakdown following Risley's suicide and
fears a similar fate. He breaks off his
friendship with Maurice. Under pressure from his widowed mother to marry, Clive
takes to wife Anne, a thoroughly naïve creature of stature and breeding and
invests himself in establishing a ‘normal life’ nestled in Pendersleigh's rural domesticity. Utterly
distraught, Maurice seeks Dr. Barry’s counsel. Barry dismisses Maurice’s
confession as pure ‘rubbish’, encouraging him similarly to take a girl of his
choosing to bed to prove he is a man. Instead, Maurice turns to Dr. Lasker-Jones,
a charlatan peddling a cure via hypnosis for homosexuality. As though to rub salt in an old wound, Clive
invites Maurice to stay with him and Anne at Pendersleigh. Maurice attends and
is quietly observed by Scudder who is due to immigrate to Argentina later in the year. Scudder is secure in his observations and boldly scales a ladder to the
open second story window of the bedroom where Maurice is restlessly lying
awake. Scudder confides in Maurice and the men indulge their sexual impulses.
The next day, Simcox discovers dried mud on the bedroom carpet and hints he
knows Scudder and Maurice have since become lovers.

Now, Maurice
receives a rather cryptic letter from Scudder proposing they meet at the
Pendersleigh boathouse. Believing Scudder to be a blackmailer Maurice hastily
departs for another session of treatments with Lasker-Jones who warns him
England “has always been disinclined to accept human nature”. The quack/physician
also advises Maurice consider immigrating to a country where homosexuality is
no longer a crime. Meanwhile, Scudder travels to London, meeting up with
Maurice at the British Museum where the blackmail misunderstanding is resolved.
Scudder is in love with Maurice and vice versa. The men spend another night
together in a hotel with Scudder suggesting his departure to Argentina is
now imminent. Maurice arrives at port with a parting gift, only to realize
Scudder has missed the sailing. Forlorn, Maurice returns to Pendersleigh to confide
in Clive his genuine love for Alec. On the surface, Clive is repulsed by this
confession. Secretly however, he is morbidly jealous of Maurice’s decision to
remain true to himself. Maurice returns to the boathouse, hoping to discover
Scudder there. To his great surprise, Scudder is there, having forsaken his family’s ambitious plans to relocate
him abroad. “Now we shan’t never be
parted,” Scudder whispers. As Pendersleigh prepares itself for nightfall, a
regretful Clive stares blankly from his bedroom window, imagining Maurice from
his college days, blissfully waving to him. Anne approaches from behind, still
obtusely unaware of her husband’s predilection. The shutters are drawn and we
realize Clive’s decision to remain ‘in the closet’ has doomed him to the eternity
of an unhappily ever after. Conversely, Maurice has been liberated from the guilt of loving another man.

Mauriceis a ground-breaking endeavor in the pedagogy of what
has since been lumped together and labeled as ‘queer cinema’. That it lacked its truest respect and reputation as
this watershed in 1987 is hardly surprising, given the socio-political climate
of the eighties and American movies’ frequent indulgences to portray gay characters
as absurdly flamboyant clowns, set apart from the rest of society, or
transiently intervening in the mainstream social fabric of society, primarily
propped up for their comic amusement. Mauricetreats homosexuals with the
same reverence as its heterosexual counterparts; indeed, more so, as its entire
modus operandi is to peel back the veil of ‘fearful
mystery’ about genuine love between men and place it on par with the amour shared between a man and a woman. For whatever reason, the emotional content of
gay relationships in movies has always had a subservient connotation and
correlation to the sexual act share in moments of heated passion. Unlike movies
that concentrate on heterosexual romance – the art of the seduction, the ‘cute’
meeting of minds, hearts, souls and eventually – bodies – the cinema’s
fascination with gay culture has frequently zeroed in on the mechanics of cheap
and tawdry sexual release in lieu of genuinely felt affairs of the heart. Mauriceis therefore, decidedly unique.
Moreover, it remains intelligent, forthright and unvarnished about the
consequences gay men face – not only under the stringency of Edwardian
society, but still, as ‘tolerated’ rather than ‘accepted’ members of
contemporary society. It seeks neither
to gratuitously expose young love among men as salacious, sinful, sexless or
silly, but to investigate and align the precepts of love between two people as
a universal neither sex-obsessed nor exclusive to heterosexual couples.

Cohen Media Group
has released Maurice to Blu-ray,
reportedly remastered in 1080p from restored 4K elements supervised by James
Ivory and cinematographer, Pierre Lhomme. Hmmm. Like the company’s reissue of another
Merchant/Ivory classic, Howards End,
Maurice is not quite the home run I
was anticipating. The pluses: a
reinvigorated transfer minus virtually all age-related dirt, scratches, etc.
and, with the added bonus of appearing to have no untoward digital tinkering
applied to artificially sharpen the image. Bravo! Lhomme’ s naturally lit
interiors are softly focused; his exteriors, full of the natural splendor of
England’s lush countryside. So, kudos to Cohen for getting it right thus far.
Grain structure? It’s definitely there, and thicker than I would have hoped.
Natural? Well, never having seen Maurice
theatrically I have no personal barometer to compare this transfer. But I
can honestly say I do not think the intermittent bouts of residual softness
scattered throughout this transfer are the result of Lhomme’ s diffused focus.
Consider the moment after Maurice’s first hypnotism session; the image suddenly
– inexplicably – murky, dull and out of focus…grainy too, as though a dupe has
been inserted. There is also some odd variation in tonality during darkly lit
scenes. This teeters dangerously close to black level ‘crush’ without ever
actually going over the edge. The final curiosity here is color balance; the
tint throughout leans to a dated sepia/jaundice yellow; the visuals looking
occasionally blanched as well.

Maurice's DTS 5.1 audio is impressive, if subdued. Dialogue
is crisp and subtly nuanced with solid spatial separation of the sustained SFX;
a light rustling breeze, as example, with distant seagulls crying. Cohen has
also afforded us the original LPCM 2.0 and a Dolby Digital 5.1. Preferences?
None. They all sound good. Extras: hmmm again. There is a lot of overlap in the
content…too much for my taste. We get new interviews with James Ivory and
Pierre Lhomme, totaling 15 min., a Q&A session with both men which
basically covers the exact same ground at 22 min. and another rather truncated ‘conversation’
with Ivory, including vintage clips of the late Ismael Merchant and Richard
Robbins; at 12 min. The very best is The Story of Maurice; a half hours’
worth of sound bites from virtually all the key participants, including
screenwriter, Kit Hesketh-Harvey, James Wilby and Hugh Grant. The last piece, A
Director’s Perspective tips the scales at 40 min. and, predictably,
offers little new or revealing once you have watched the rest of the extras herein.
At just under 40 min. we get a slew of outtakes and deleted scenes hosted by
James Ivory. Finally, two theatrical trailers and a handsomely produced (and
very Criterion-esque) essay booklet round out the fun. Cohen has housed
virtually all these extras on a second Blu-ray. We are grateful for their
consolidation. Bottom line: Mauriceis
a picture deserving of respect. The transfer here is not exactly what I would
call ‘reference quality’ but it is superior to anything yet seen on home video.
Bottom line: recommended for content. Caveats on the transfer.

About Me

Nick Zegarac is a freelance writer/editor and graphics artist. He holds a Masters in Communications and an Honors B.A in Creative Lit from the University of Windsor.
He is currently a freelance writer and has been a contributing editor for Black Moss Press and is a featured contributor to online's The Subtle Tea. He's also has had two screenplays under consideration in Hollywood.
Last year he finished his first novel and is currently searching for an agent to represent him.
Contact Nick via email at movieman@sympatico.ca